Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself
by Sonata IX
Summary: Only the prologue. I'm not sure if I'll ever write more. If I do, it promises to be a nice long story. (Jareth&Sarah, incomplete)


Once upon a time the Goblin King had watched people. But he had lost that power long ago to a young girl. Now, it was she that watched him.  
  
It was something that Sarah delighted in, spying on Jareth. Learning the secrets ins and outs of the palace, flitting through the abandoned corridors like a shadow, giggling in the dark at her prey. She followed him every minute of every day. Sometimes she could even predict his actions. She was not sure when or how, but it had become almost an obsession for her, knowing everything there was to know about the Goblin King.  
  
Things had begun innocently enough. Hoggle and her other friends from the Underground visited her often, appearing magically whenever she needed them. At first, she thought it was something they did on their own, some magical ability the fairy creatures possessed, but eventually the truth came out. It was Sarah who had the power.  
  
The knowledge astounded her. She could do magic? There was no explaining it. Her friends presented several possibilities. Perhaps her time in the Underground had infected her with magical energy. Perhaps it was her defeat of the Goblin King. Or perhaps Sarah was just one of those rare humans gifted with true magic of her own.  
  
It didn't really matter to Sarah how it had happened, only that it had. And now that it had, she wanted to learn everything about it that she could.  
  
She'd started simply, reviewing her thoughts and words each time her friends appeared. The phrase 'I wish' seemed to work particularly well for summoning them, but that wasn't good enough for Sarah. In times of great need, they had come to her without her uttering a word, and thus she concluded that the most important thing was the will, the need, and she practiced calling them without speaking.  
  
They became quite annoyed with her during this process, Hoggle in particular. Being summoned at all hours of the day, often for no reason at all, was frustrating enough to make the dwarf howl each time he felt the familiar tug. Finally though, Sarah was satisfied. Now it was time to move to the next level: instead of bringing them to her, she wanted to send herself to them.  
  
The first time she did it, everyone was nervous. When Sarah appeared in the Underground in the midst of her companions' gathering, relieved giggles were heard all around. She did not stay long that first time. No one knew exactly how limited Jareth's power over her was. Did 'no power' mean no power over her in any way whatsoever, no exceptions? Or did it mean no power over her directly, but he could still influence things when she trespassed into his territory, or had dealings with his subjects? At any rate, no one wanted to challenge him. At least, not yet.  
  
Now that Sarah had the Underground to practice her magic in, she began spending more and more time hidden away in caves, oubliettes, the Bog...anywhere she didn't expect the Goblin King to visit. She practiced other kinds of spells now, things she had seen Jareth do. She learned his disappearing tricks easily enough, how to walk up walls, summon objects. The one thing that eluded her was shapeshifting, perhaps because the thought of changing her body into something else was so foreign that she had no clear idea how to safely go about teaching herself. Nonetheless, she was quite pleased with her progress.  
  
Finally, she felt she was ready to proceed to the final step of her plan. She began exploring.  
  
It started with the Labyrinth itself. Sarah covered as many of its areas as she could. She may not be able to predict its movements as easily as its inhabitants, but she could still navigate her way through it eventually. This accomplishment pleased her greatly, as it had worried her that without her friends' help, she would not have been able to defeat Jareth. She didn't want to face him again without knowing that she could stand on her own.  
  
Not that she had any intention of facing him again, of course.  
  
After mastering the maze, she learned the goblin city in under a week and moved on to the castle. To her surprise, the single building was more difficult to puzzle out than the entire Labyrinth. Even more complicated was puzzling out Jareth. As she learned more and more about him, she came to feel an odd kinship with him...one might even go so far as to call it love. And she learned of his love for her as well. It had surprised her at first, but after reviewing the events of her first visit to the Underground, she wondered how she had missed it.  
  
So now she watched him, uncertain of what to do with her newfound knowledge and power, but unable to stop. 'Know thy enemy,' she told herself. And the Goblin King was most certainly her enemy.  
  
Wasn't he?


End file.
